Just Because You’ve Found Longterm Love Doesn’t Mean It Won’t Take Work

It’s been almost eight years. Almost eight whole years walking beside him. Since I’m together with him, my heart has never stopped with singing. It always is whispering a soothing melody to me. A song only I can hear.

My special song.

We have come a long way since then.

Love will never be easy.

It is something we often are afraid to have because it can hurt us badly. It can hurt us permanently, lead you to possible heartbreaks and even a sense of losing yourself in the process of loving someone. That’s why we sometimes put up an invisible armor to hide behind it and protect ourselves from any possible danger. We put up our best self in front of that person and hope everything will turn out fine, just the way how you have imagined it would be.

We forget sometimes that we can only love when it’s coming from both sides and not just from one side. It will never work if it’s one-sided. It will never work for both of you when you want everything to be exactly how you have imagined it. It is teamwork, willing to work until the latest hours. There are no breaks. You are never off duty, not even on the weekends or holidays. Each passing day, it takes as much effort as the day before and the next following day. It never stops asking you to work for it. It is an all-going process. Because if you do stop, you will soon see the consequences. You will see and feel the changes slowly appearing in front of your eyes and creeping into your safety armor. Love is like metal. When you expose metal to water and oxygen, rust occurs. When you don’t work on your relationship, it will get rusty. And if you don’t do anything about it, it will break. You can’t expect it still works on its own, especially when some time already has passed. Maintain and wipe off the dirt of the rust, and polish it like it is still brand new.

Just because you have a long-term relationship, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work for it anymore.

Reminisce about how it all started, remind each other why you are together, look at old pictures together, be grateful for the good and bad moments for they both have shaped the direction of our path of the journey. Agree to disagree. Winning in a relationship means also losing.

It isn’t about winning. It has always been about working together on an adventure you both willing have applied to. No one has ever forced you to take part in it.

So if you did decide to partake, go all-in for it. It is an adventure filled with obstacles and challenges, where you will shed some tears every now and then, but it will also make you realize how important someone is for you when you clear out the rocky stones of the path to making it easier for that special one to walk on it. You will propose to go first into the forest to prevent your loved one to get hurt, to end up in wounds and blood yourselves instead due to the sharp branches of the trees. And while those sacrifices can hurt us, the curve of our mouths will still point upwards because you know you are in this together.

We are both covered in scars, but also covered in a cloud of happiness. Most importantly, my ears are still intact like eight years ago, which means:

I can still hear my special song which I only can hear. And I’m sure he can hear his song too. A song he only can hear.

We have come a long way since then.